This invention relates generally to apparatus and method for matching buyers and sellers of products and services. More particularly, it pertains to automated, and usually computerized methods and systems for creating a depository for sellers to indicate inventory availability and a source for buyers to access to review those seller""s inventories for purchase purposes. Optionally, the system may be used by a single entity to manage assets where multiple users require the ability to independently access the management system, often times from remote and varying locations.
The cornerstone of a free trade stem is the ability of merchants to make the availability of their products and services known to potential purchasers. The concept of trading between sellers and buyers is well known and transactions between the two originally occurred in face-to-face meetings. Subsequently, as markets became more sophisticated, buyers and sellers turned to written documentation for both placing orders and filling orders. Of late, however, the advent of electronic transactional capabilities has made it exceedingly advantageous for businesses to automate many of their methods of doing business. Among those methods and processes is the activity of merchandising goods and services. A common goal in these automations is to increase accuracy, while at the same time reduce costs and time-frames between the initiation of a purchase and its completion.
A fundamental need of sellers of merchandise and providers of services is an effective means for communicating inventory availabilities to potential buyers. As evidenced by the thriving advertising industry, effective and persuasive means for communicating information to buyers is a paramount concern for providers. The advent of broadcast media provided a revolutionary step and improvement in the ability to disseminate information to purchasers. Broadcast communications, however, are unidirectional in that sellers are able to disseminate information to potential buyers, but those buyers who receive the information are not able to react in a direct manner and xe2x80x9cbroadcastxe2x80x9d a response. Though radio and television has made it easier for a seller to distribute product and service information to a broader audience than traditional print media, it has not provided a highly effective means for selecting the receivers of the information, nor does it provide a closed environment within which the parties may review the needs and abilities of the other.
Because of the broadcast media""s ability to disseminate information in a rather scattered manner to parties who may or may not have a need for the advertised product or service, consumers are regularly bombarded with information, from sellers that is of no interest, and in many cases serves only to irritate. As a result, a majority of the resources expended on broadcast advertising are wasted on the distribution of information that is never likely to achieve a sale.
As opposed to advertising to consumers, marketing between businesses is often more successful at affecting a sale. The reason for this is that more focused communication is possible when a supplier knows with some degree of certainty who its potential customers are. In that case, information may be provided to those who are at least likely to purchase goods and services of the seller.
Some sellers choose systems in which information about their merchandise is made available to potential purchasers, but it is the purchaser that originates a transaction by accessing the information and initiating a purchase. In this type of system, there is almost a 100% percent certainty that the potential purchaser at least has a need for the product, and because they are actively seeking to review available products and services that will meet their needs, they are also likely to affect and complete a purchase. The problem of such a system is providing an environment within which the providers information is conveniently deposited and held until selectively accessed by interested buyers. In a more traditional format, catalogs of merchandise available from a provider have been printed and which may in turn be requested by buyers interested in those types of products. Without some advertising of the availability of these catalogs, however, it is unlikely that many purchasers will either know about the catalog""s availability, or how to order and receive one.
The catalog concept has been automated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,053,956 that discloses an interactive system for retail transactions. In use, a purchaser may access a computer system and select information about a particular product that is then displayed on a video screen, together with certain data and specification about the product. In this invention, a transaction may be affected and a purchase made through the displaying computer system.
A related system is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,336 that discloses a system and method for allocating resources of a retailer among multiple wholesalers. This system provides a means by which information may be provided about a plurality of wholesalers and their inventories and purchases made by retailers based on those retailers"" collective needs.
In each of the described patented systems, the purchaser has the ability to access information in an automated environment and review merchandise information. Orders may even be placed on these systems once the purchaser has made an appropriate selection. In each situation, however, the merchandise provider has no interactive capabilities for accessing the systems. Instead, the sellers are dependant upon information about their products and services being entered and made available by the system administrator.
An alternative system for exchanging information has been described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,799,156 that discloses an interactive market management system. Therein, a system is described for interactive on-line electronic communications and processing of business transactions between a plurality of different types of independent users including at least a plurality of sellers and a plurality of buyers, as well as financial institutions and freight service providers. The concept is to provide each member participating in a transaction simultaneous on-line communication with the other members. The environment for the communication is a computer system, but the interaction is akin to a conference call or xe2x80x9cchat linexe2x80x9d wherein each member communicates with the others and is ultimately able to make commitments for their contributions to the transaction on the system. While certain benefits may be achieved by such an interactive system, there are many times when all parties are not available at the same time to interact with one another. As a result, utilization of a system of this nature will be limited to those times at which all parties are simultaneously available to correspond with each other. The ability to fully utilize a system of this nature is obviously hindered by this requirement that all parties be available at the same time. Furthermore, it has the limitation of being able to be utilized for only a single transaction at any one time. That is, multiple purchasers cannot converse with the seller about separate and different transactions at the same time.
In reviewing the above needs of purchasers and sellers, as well as the known systems that are presently available for their transactions, the need for an improved means for exchanging product and service information between parties has been recognized and resolved through the use of the present invention.
The present invention in its several disclosed embodiments alleviates the drawbacks described above with respect to conventionally designed methods and incorporates several additionally beneficial features.
This invention includes features and/or components that have been invented and selected for their individual and combined benefits and superior performance as an automated and independently accessible inventory information exchange system. The system includes multiple aspects that individually and collectively provide new and novel features in and of themselves. Each of the individual components or processes, however, work in association with, and are optimally mated to the others. Together, they yield an overall information management system that has superior collective effectiveness in providing an automated and independently accessible inventory information exchange system.
Referring now to specific embodiments of the information management system of the automated and independently accessible inventory information exchange system of the present invention, additional benefits and advantageous features will be appreciated. The following optional and alternative embodiments of the present invention are provided as exemplifications to aid in the understanding of the invention, but are not to be considered necessarily limitations on the scope of protection claimed herein regarding the method for controlling the collection, processing and dissemination of information by a host regarding product and service availability.
In these regards, the method includes the steps of establishing a host operated information management system wherein the information management system is a computer having information processing and storage capabilities. The host also has electronic communication connections such as modems that permit third parties to electronically connect with the information management system for exchanging information therewith. Host approved sellers of products and services are granted limited electronic access to the information management system so that each approved seller then has a self-initiated capability to exclusively access that seller""s inventory information that is maintained on the information management system for adding, amending and deleting portions of the seller""s inventory information. The seller""s inventory information is analyzed and assimilated into a buyers listing of products and services available through the information management system to potential buyers. Host approved buyers of products and services are granted limited electronic access to the information management system so that each approved buyer has a self-initiatable capability to access the buyers listing for reviewing products and services of interest to that buyer. Within the information management system, the capability is provided for a purchase transaction to be initiated by an approved buyer who electronically designates a product or service of interest for purchase from the buyers listing.
In one embodiment, a seller is assessed a service charge determined by the amount of inventory information stored on the seller""s behalf in the host information management system. In another embodiment, the seller is assessed a transactional service charge, the amount of that service charge being determined by the sale price of the item sold in a sale transaction completed on the host information management system. In yet another embodiment, the seller is assessed a uniform transactional service charge per sale transaction completed on the host information management system.
Each approved buyer""s capability to access the buyers listing for reviewing products further comprises the capability to filter the buyers listing so that only products or services meeting that buyer""s specified criteria are listed for review. To aid in assuring that buyers may select only available products and services, the host system may alter the status of a selected item upon its designation by a buyer for purchase so that the item is subsequently removed from display on the buyers listing. Alternatively, the selected item designated by a buyer for purchase may be blocked from future selection by that or other buyers until the item""s previous xe2x80x9cavailablexe2x80x9d status is restored.
Each seller and each buyer is issued a unique identifier utilized by the host information management system to identify each upon their log in into the host information management system. This log in identifier, such as a company identification number and/or password will be recognized and recorded by the host information management system for usage tracking, billing, and other purposes.
In a preferred embodiment, the host operated information management system is interfaced to the sellers and the buyers as a site accessible through the Internet. Easy access is provided to the host Internet site to the sellers and buyers, each of whom may access the host site upon their own initiative remotely through an Internet access provider of their choice. Because this preferred embodiment operates within the framework of the Internet, the system is substantially continuously available to a plurality of sellers and a plurality of buyers, except during very brief times during which system maintenance is performed.
The host information management system operates in a database format in which information pertaining to a particular product or service item is maintained as one of a plurality of records of the database and the buyers listing is produced through a report that surveys the plurality of records and compiles the buyers listing from selected information contained within those records. When input, each record is assigned a unique identifier for tracking and processing purposes. Since each record usually reflects a discrete item of product or a particular service, the record identifier, such as an identification number, also serves to identify individual products or services among the possibly many that are maintained not only by a particular seller, but also among the several sellers"" inventories.
Each record is formatted to a base template that has a plurality of fields wherein each field is intended to contain a specific type of information about the product or service item of that record. Because each seller is identified upon log in into the host system, a customized template may be created for each seller wherein each field that is likely to contain the same information for each product or service record of that seller is partially pre-completed to facilitate the entry of product and service information into the host information management system by the seller. Therefore, instead of displaying a generic template to a seller when his or her inventories are being manipulated to add, change or delete items, their customized template may be displayed for making the manipulation process go more quickly and with less effort.
This same or abbreviated version of the template may be displayed to a buyer upon log in. That buyer may then complete chosen fields with information to be used in a matching process with like fields in the sellers"" inventory records for filtering product and service information to be listed on the buyers listing to that information which meets the buyer""s specified filter criteria. As an option to the buyer, the buyer""s filtered product and service information to be listed on the buyers listing may be further condensed so that multiple items of like or similar products and services meeting certain host or buyer specified criteria are reduced to single entries on that buyer""s listing for brevity and simplification purposes to the reviewing buyer.